Real Player 10 for Mac OSX

RealPlayer used to leave the .ram files lying around on the desktop for me as well, but it doesn't any longer.

In particular, mine now get downloaded to the directory /private/var/tmp/folders. userid /TemporaryItems. In my case, my user id is 501, so my files get downloaded to /private/var/tmp/folders.501/TemporaryItems. When I click on an alternate song, I get a hurl.exe n .ram file in that same directory.

For example, I just downloaded two files and see this in that directory:
hurl.exe.ram hurl.exe2.ram

When I exit RealPlayer, those files disappear.

You might want to check your /private/var/tmp/folders. userid /TemporaryItems directory to see if there's anything amiss there…

HI, William.

You wrote:

"The fact that the clips are hurl-n.exe.ram files seems to indicate there's already a hurl.exe.ram file on your Desktop somewhere (or in whatever directory you have files set to auto-download to) that may be interfering with the auto launch and play mechanism."

Yes, the reason for the hurl-n* files from Amazon is clearly the existence of prior attempts with Safari.

However, even if all of the hurl* files are removed, and one tries again with Safari, the first downloaded is hurl.exe.ram and it does not auto-launch Real Player. This has been true under both Safari Version 2.0.3 (417.8) and the latest (after Security Update 2006-002), Version 2.0.3 (417.9.2).

All my browsers (OmniWeb, Safari, and IE) are set to download files to the same folder: an Internet Downloads folder on my PM G5's second internal hard drive.

What's interesting is how OmniWeb handles the Amazon files. It is as you describe you're seeing with Safari.

The OmniWeb Downloads window shows it downloaded the file

/Volumes/Our Work/Internet Downloads/hurl.exe

Real Player launches, loads, and plays the clip. The hurl.exe file is not in the Internet Downloads folder after the clip is played.

Checking /private/var/tmp shows playing the clips through OmniWeb creates hurl n .exe files for each download ( n is an integer) in the folder

private/var/tmp/folders.501/TemporaryItems/

(using my ID, whose NetInfo uid is 501).

The first clip file is simply hurl.exe whereas subsequent clips are named hurl n .exe, as expected.

The clips remain in the folder cited above after playing. Quitting Real Player removes the clips from their temporary folder.

Nothing is saved in /private/var/tmp when playing the clips with Safari.

Permissions on /private/var/tmp look right:

Owner: system
Access: Read & Write

Group: wheel
Access: Read & Write

Others: Read & Write

Interesting also when playing multiple clips, the downloads from OmniWeb (lastest gold version, 5.1.3 (563.66)) are hurln.exe and saved in the /private/var/tmp folder noted above but Safari saves the file as hurl-n.exe.ram in Internet Downloads.

The corresponding Open Safe Files options are enabled in both Safari and OmniWeb.

Again, I've only seen this with Amazon audio clips. If I view C-SPAN video streams, both OmniWeb and Safari result in Real Player launching and playing the stream.

Still seems to be some glitch in how Safari is handling the Amazon clips.

Good luck!

😉 Dr. Smoke
Author: Troubleshooting Mac® OS X

That's just the thing; if it were something Safari were doing obviously wrong it:

1) Wouldn't work for me, and
2) Safari wouldn't be putting RealAudio files in my Temporary Items folder.

My previous post shows I'm running the same version of Safari as you are and it all works for me, and I do have the latest Security Updates installed. It simply never stopped working for me.

As far as my directories, my login name is kucharsk:

$ ls -ld /private/var/tmp
drwxrwxrwt 5 root wheel 170 Mar 16 00:25 /private/var/tmp
$ ls -ld /private/var/tmp/folders.501
drwx------ 3 kucharsk wheel 102 Mar 14 00:28 /private/var/tmp/folders.501
$ ls -ld /private/var/tmp/folders.501/TemporaryItems
drwxr-xr-x 2 kucharsk wheel 68 Mar 16 00:18 /private/var/tmp/folders.501/TemporaryItems
I think a key here may be the fact that my Safari is saving the downloads in the Temporary Items folder where yours is storing them in Internet Downloads; I'm wondering if RealPlayer isn't looking for them in the Temporary Items folder and is failing to open them when it launches because it doesn't find them there.

The only other thing is (surprisingly) I have my Safari->Preferences->General "Save downloaded files to" selection as Desktop, with "Open 'safe' files after downloading" checked…

Hi, William.

1. Re: Permissions. Same here:

% ls -ld /private/var/tmp
drwxrwxrwt 10 root wheel 340 Mar 16 01:53 /private/var/tmp
% ls -ld /private/var/tmp/folders.501
drwx------ 4 drsmoke wheel 136 Mar 15 13:54 /private/var/tmp/folders.501
% ls -ld /private/var/tmp/folders.501/TemporaryItems
drwxr-xr-x 2 drsmoke wheel 68 Mar 15 16:42 /private/var/tmp/folders.501/TemporaryItems

2. Changed Safari's download folder to Desktop: no joy.

3. Grasping at straws here, I'm almost wondering if this has something to do with the browser one was using when one installed Real Player (RP). When it notified me of the update, I was opening Real Media files from a web page in OmniWeb. The Amazon links launch RP in OmniWeb, but not in Safari. However, the C-SPAN links work in either browser as expected: RP is auto-launched, stream begins playing.

I note that nothing is downloaded to

/private/var/tmp/folder.501/TemporaryItems

when viewing the C-SPAN videos, so your assumption about where RP may be looking could be a clue. Why it would look in one place with OmniWeb and another with Safari is a mystery.

To double-check this, I quit Real Player and all browsers. Then I trashed all the Real Player preferences in Home > Library > Preferences, i.e.

- the file com.RealNetworks.RealPlayer.plist
- the folder com.RealNetworks.data

Then I launched Real Player and went through its configuration. Then I quit Real Player and tested both OmniWeb and Safari with the Amazon clips. No joy: RP launches and plays clip in OmniWeb, not in Safari.

4. Another funny thing I noticed. In Safari, if you select Help > Installed Plug-Ins it lists the following in the table:

RealPlayer Plugin
RealMedia Player — from file “RealPlayer Plugin”.

MIME Type: audio/x-pn-realaudio-plugin
Description: RealPlayer Plugin
Extensions: rm

The hurl* files downloaded by either OmniWeb or Safari indicate they are "RealPlayer Media Files" in their Get Info windows.

5. I also tried the option in Real Player > Preferences > General for logging. No joy: nothing logged when attempting to play a clip in Safari. I frankly don't think Safari is even invoking Real Player on the Amazon clips.

6. There's only one other thing I can think of: I have Acrobat 7.0.7 installed. Acrobat 7 added frameworks to Safari for displaying PDFs in Acrobat within Safari. They're discussed in the Adobe KB document "Configure Safari to display PDF files using Acrobat 7 viewers (Mac OS X)." Not sure if these are interfering somehow. According to the Adobe document, they should not be.

I wonder if Flag or Andy have Adobe Acrobat 7.x installed as well.

Good luck!

😉 Dr. Smoke
Author: Troubleshooting Mac® OS X

No acrobat on my system - thanks for all the checking .

Thanks, Andy. Guess that rules out Acrobat 7.x as a possibility.

It's a real mystery, but one I would not have noticed unless I decided to look into the problem since I almost never use Safari: I use OmniWeb (OW).

I use Safari when I need to use a Flash site. OW lets one selectively disable plug-ins and I run it with Flash disabled to avoid all the Flash advertising and related detritus. With Safari, plug-ins are all-or-nothing, so if I need to use a Flash site, I use Safari. It's very rare I need to visit a Flash-based site.

Good luck!

😉 Dr. Smoke
Author: Troubleshooting Mac® OS X

Perhaps you should try deleting RealPlayer then reinstalling it and see if that does anything.

For the record, though I do have Firefox installed on my machine, I use Safari 99.9% of the time...

Grasping at straws; do you have the following files in your /Library/Internet Plug-Ins directory:
-rw-r--r-- 1 kucharsk admin 0 Mar 17 00:07 RealPlayer Plugin
-rw-r--r-- 1 kucharsk admin 0 Mar 17 00:07 RealPlayer Plugin.xpt

What's interesting is they have a size of 0, which means they are just "placeholders" for whomever checks for them.

The other references I found for RealPlayer Plugin are in /Applications/RealPlayer.app/Contents/MacOS:
-rw-r--r-- 1 kucharsk kucharsk 3588 Dec 15 2004 RealPlayer Plugin
drwxr-xr-x 3 kucharsk kucharsk 102 Mar 3 2005 RealPlayer Plugin.plugin
-rw-r--r-- 1 kucharsk kucharsk 3456 Dec 15 2004 RealPlayer Plugin.xpt>

Hi, William.

You wrote:

"Perhaps you should try deleting RealPlayer then reinstalling it and see if that does anything."

Perhaps an exercise for one of the other Safari users. I'm an OmniWeb guy: it works there, so I'm happy. Looking into the reported problem is merely an interesting exercise. 😉

Re: The plug-ins. Yes:

-rw-r--r-- 1 drsmoke admin 0 Mar 17 02:31 /Library/Internet Plug-ins/RealPlayer Plugin
-rw-r--r-- 1 drsmoke admin 0 Mar 17 02:31 /Library/Internet Plug-ins/RealPlayer Plugin.xpt

In Finder, they are Kind: Alias, pointing to two of the other three files you noted. However, mine have some very different dates:

/Applications/RealPlayer.app/Contents/MacOS:

-rwxr-xr-x 1 drsmoke admin 1818700 Feb 7 19:40 RealPlayer
-rw-r--r-- 1 drsmoke admin 3588 Feb 7 19:40 RealPlayer Plugin
drwxr-xr-x 3 drsmoke admin 102 Feb 7 19:40 RealPlayer Plugin.plugin
-rw-r--r-- 1 drsmoke admin 3456 Feb 7 19:40 RealPlayer Plugin.xpt
drwxr-xr-x 3 drsmoke admin 102 Feb 7 19:40 RealPlayer WebKitUtils.bundle

I see you have some bits dating back to 2004? When I check the .dmg for the version I installed, the dates therein match the dates I show above.

Perhaps your copy works because you have some strange mix of old and new components? (Really grasping at straws here, eh? ;-))

I also note:

/Applications/RealPlayer.app/Contents/MacOS/RealPlayer WebKitUtils.bundle/

Neither OmniWeb, nor AFAIK FireFox, use WebKit (OW uses its own version thereof, not the same as the version with Safari). Wonder if that's related somehow.

It's an interesting glitch. I may tinker with it some more. Perhaps Andy or Flag would like to try the reinstall approach and report back.

Good luck!

😉 Dr. Smoke
Author: Troubleshooting Mac® OS X

Perhaps Andy or Flag would like to try the reinstall approach and report back.

I had already tried this while looking into someone else's problem who couldn't get any ram files to auto-open or the bbc embedded video player to work.

I like safari - & use it, since for what browsing I do- it causes very few problems & none of the others work faster on my imac & all others take longer to start up.
I also use it because that's the browser that most people here have issues with ( well, not here - but in the safari forum).


But from viewing 100's of posts with genuine problems viewing particular sites - due either to webkit bugs or safari being a stickler for correct code.... I don't regard it as being of the same std as other 'free' apps that come with a new apple - which seems a little rum to me; even knowing how/why it came to be what it is. Your average punter buying a shiny new mac cuz it looks great & doesn't get hacked/trojaned/virused could care less about the reasons why - but switches browsers because other ones open more pages w/o problems


Which is mostly very OT - but there was a bit at the start about realplayer.

Hmmm, Doc, you may have something there...

Just checking my version (which Real says is the most up to date) vs. the latest full version I downloaded:

My Existing Version:
10.0.0, RealPlayer for MacOS X ", © 1995-2004 RealNetworks, Inc. (build 325)

Fresh Download:
10.0.0, RealPlayer for MacOS X ", © 1995-2006 RealNetworks, Inc. (build 352)

The difference? My existing version is one I downloaded back in 2004 when I bought my iBook and have kept up to date using RealPlayer's internal "Check for Updates" mechanism,

Very interesting…

Yep… the folks at Real broke something.

I trashed my copy of RealPlayer and installed the new one, and now it doesn't work from Safari any more.

I saved off the application before installing the new one, and reinstalling the old one doesn't restore functionality, so it's due to some other file somewhere the new version modifies…

OK, I know what's going on, but not why.

Basically, the RealPlayer Plugin isn't launching.

It's what moves downloaded files from the Desktop to the Temporary Items directory, and what launches RealPlayer itself.

I'm wondering if Real just broke it in a recent update, or if it's something to do with the recent Security Updates.

Regardless, that's why the RealAudio files are being left on the Desktop.

FWIW, after deleting and reinstalling RealPlayer, files won't play from either Safari or Firefox, no matter WHO the files are downloaded from (Amazon, Real or anyone else.)

You wrote:

"FWIW, after deleting and reinstalling RealPlayer, files won't play from either Safari or Firefox, no matter WHO the files are downloaded from (Amazon, Real or anyone else.)"

Strange.

Have you checked Real Player > Preferences > Media Types and verified the appropriate types are selected and active?

For me, the Amazon clips still work in OmniWeb but not Safari. Have you tried video, such as the C-SPAN streams? Both OW and Safari have launched those in RP without a hitch.

If memory serves, when I went through the last RP Update process it downloaded a disk image that required I drag-and-drop RP from the image to Applications. It was a full replacement, not a delta update based on what I can see from comparing the Contents of the app in both the disk image and in /Applications on my Mac.

I went digging through the various RP .plist files to see if there was something specific but didn't find anything that jumped out at me. Maybe I missed something.

Quite bizarre!

Good luck!

😉 Dr. Smoke
Author: Troubleshooting Mac® OS X

The C-SPAN streams do launch from Safari; it must be something having to do with RealAudio streams not launching the plugin.

I can't speak for OmniWeb; I only have Safari and Firefox.

FYI, I've escalated this with Real, and this was publicized on MacFixit today.

Hi, William.

You wrote:

"I've escalated this with Real, and this was publicized on MacFixit today."

Good, esp. w.r.t. escalating with Real.

We've at least made some dents... I don't know if they're on the problem or our foreheads, but I remember a line from Studs Terkel that went something like "The purpose of work is to make a dent." A clever line. 😉

I had played around with the various preferences in RP , e.g. cookies, send stats, etc. and never found a combination that worked.

I also dug around in both Safari and RP's preferences. Nothing jumped out at me, but I may have missed something.

I've thought it may be some Launch Services issue. Safari doesn't have a Preference related to "Helper Apps" like other browsers, so my guess is that if it thinks the file is safe, it tells Launch Services to handle accordingly. This gets back to some of your thoughts re: recent Security Updates.

I think we should let Real chew on it awhile. We've been doing there job gratis!

Good luck!

😉 Dr. Smoke
Author: Troubleshooting Mac® OS X